1. United States
2. Ind.
3. Letter

April 22, 2026   Members of the Indiana General Assembly Indiana Statehouse 200 W. Washington Street Indianapolis, Indiana 46204 Dear Members of the Indiana General Assembly, I am writing as an Indiana constituent, a technology professional, and a parent with a child on the way to call on the General Assembly to pass legislation banning new data center construction in Indiana. This is not opposition to economic development. It is opposition to the unchecked destruction of the state's air, water, and public health infrastructure in exchange for negligible employment, unsustainable subsidy, and accelerating environmental debt. Indiana is the most polluted state in the nation by the U.S. News & World Report 2025 rankings — 50th out of 50 states for pollution and natural environment. The state ranks 48th for industrial toxins and 48th for pollution health risk. Indiana has more river and stream miles classified as too polluted to swim in than any other state. Nearly all Indiana surface water sampled is unfit as a drinking water source. PFAS — persistent, bioaccumulating chemicals — have been detected in municipal water systems including Indianapolis. This is the baseline against which the General Assembly is approving new industrial buildout. Between March and September 2025, Indiana's data center count increased by nearly 30% to 71 facilities. The General Assembly passed House Bill 1007 in 2025 to facilitate further expansion. Proposed hyperscale facilities in northern Indiana are projected to require more electricity by 2030 than all Indiana residential customers combined. Utilities are responding not with renewable investment but with new natural gas generation and extended coal plant operations — worsening an already-failing air quality system that the American Lung Association consistently grades as dangerous. Water consumption from a single large AI data center is equivalent to a municipality of 10,000 to 50,000 residents. U.S. data center water consumption of 17.4 billion gallons in 2023 is on pace to double by 2028, with the Midwest projected to bear the greatest regional burden. In Indiana, this is not theoretical. Construction dewatering at Amazon's New Carlisle facility documented lowered aquifer levels and dry residential wells. Counties have been forced to impose emergency water usage caps. The General Assembly's response has been further incentivization. The economic rationale does not survive analysis. Data centers produce approximately 0.26 jobs per megawatt consumed. The state's general industrial average is 41 jobs per megawatt. Sales tax exemptions cost Indiana an estimated $34.5 million per facility annually — more than $1.7 billion over fifty years per project. Indiana City, Michigan rejected an $800 million data center project in 2025 precisely because the developer could not demonstrate meaningful community benefit. Indiana's legislature has moved in the opposite direction. What this amounts to is a trade: the state absorbs long-term environmental and infrastructure costs in exchange for temporary construction employment and corporate tax avoidance. The people who are harmed — residents drawing well water in St. Joseph County, families in counties with failing air quality grades, children with elevated asthma rates — are not the people negotiating these deals behind non-disclosure agreements with local officials. I am asking the General Assembly to pass legislation that imposes a ban on new data center construction permits in Indiana until: the state's water quality achieves meaningful compliance with Clean Water Act standards; air quality in failing counties meets EPA standards; and any new large-scale industrial facility in this sector is required to submit an independently reviewed environmental impact assessment as a condition of approval. The residents of Indiana deserve a legislature that governs in their interest. On this issue, the record to date is the opposite. I urge you to change it or we will change who holds your office.   Respectfully,    Adam